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Sunday, June 25, 2006

Ind. Courts - Judges featured

Indianapolis federal judge John Tinder is featured today by the Indianapolis Star in "Five Questions for John Tinder." A sample:

What person has influenced you the most in shaping your legal philosophy?

"I'd say Judge Patricia Gifford of Marion County criminal court. She brings such a calm presence into the courtroom. . . . She handles things in a very balanced way. (On Gifford presiding over the Mike Tyson rape trial in 1992): "That case was tried in (little more than) eight days. If that had been tried in California, it would have taken eight months."

Allen County Superior Court judge John Surbeck is featured by the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette in a story by Rebecca S. Green titled "On his bike, judge finds a way to relax." Some quotes:
Surbeck seems most proud of Allen County’s Re-Entry Court program, paid for by a federal grant and geared toward preventing recidivism for local offenders. He oversees the court-supervised program that helps transition offenders on early release from prison back into the community, providing mentoring, counseling, and help finding work.

“At the same time that came up, I was getting frustrated because I was doing everything I could do and seeing the same people over and over,” he said.

Surbeck served part time as a public defender in his life prior to the bench. He represented one generation of individuals and as a judge was seeing their children and grandchildren appear before him.

“It was time to do something,” he said.

The program, now about five years old, has reduced the rate of offenders committing other crimes to about 34 percent in Allen County, compared with nearly 60 percent nationwide, he said.

With the Re-Entry project, the judge said he is coming to the conclusion that, instead of using the penitentiary as a default, only the most seriously violent should be sent there. The rest should be closely monitored by the community.

“The (Department of Correction) does bad things to people,” he said, adding that while prison officials are doing their jobs, it is an expensive and isolating process for the community and the offenders.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on June 25, 2006 09:04 AM
Posted to Indiana Courts